News Release

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Local angle: Forney, Texas

$3 million gift endows Cole professorship in School of Journalism, Mass Communication

By ZACH HOSKINS
School of Journalism and Mass Communication

CHAPEL HILL — An anonymous donor has given $3 million to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to endow a new professorship in honor of Dr. Richard Cole, dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication for 25 years.

The Richard Cole Eminent Professorship will be the largest endowed professorship in the school and one of the university’s largest. Income from the endowment will provide either salary and support to a current school faculty member or funds to help the school attract a distinguished scholar from outside the university.

"I am deeply touched at the thoughtfulness and generosity of the donor and his wife," Cole said. "They want no personal credit; they just want to help the university and our school."

Cole, who will step aside as dean in 2005, led the school to national and international prominence. In virtually every ranking, UNC’s school is among the top journalism-mass communication programs in the country. The school’s most recent accreditation report, from the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications last year, said the school is recognized by academics and media professionals as perhaps the best program in the nation.

"Richard has set a standard of excellence that is unmatched virtually anywhere else," said Chancellor James Moeser. "This professorship is a fitting tribute to his years of dedication to the school and its students."

On Cole’s watch, the school grew from 265 juniors and seniors to 1,000 now, and from two sequences in which students could major – advertising and news-editorial -- to five, said Dr. Thomas Bowers, senior associate dean of the school. New sequences are electronic communication, visual communication and public relations. The school also offers specialties in business, community and medical journalism and sports communication.

"There was a lot of interest in those fields, and Richard felt we should grow to meet it," Bowers said. "There have been other schools that tried to stay traditional in terms of print journalism, but Richard saw the value and great student interest in other specialties and believed it was important to prepare students for careers in those fields."

The number of faculty members grew from 12 to 44, with Cole pushing for, and increasing, diversity in the ranks, Bowers said. In 1999, the faculty expressed gratitude for Cole’s efforts to move the school to a new, state-of-the-art facility in Carroll Hall, presenting him with a bronze plaque that now hangs in Carroll.

"He was responsible for moving the school, raising the money to renovate Carroll and raising millions of dollars for professorships and other programs," Bowers said. First Cole successfully convinced university leadership that the school needed the building; then he raised more than $5 million in private gifts to supplement a $5.2 million state appropriation for renovations. His efforts drew donations from nearly every major media company in the country.

Cole has strengthened the school’s international presence, in Eastern Europe and Africa and in countries including Cuba, Mexico and Russia. He has consulted for several state governments and more than 30 universities in Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Russia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States. For eight years, he was vice president of the worldwide International Association for Mass Communication Research.

A native of Forney, Texas, Cole earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and a doctorate from the University of Minnesota. He joined the school faculty in 1971 and became graduate studies director in 1976. Three years later, at age 37, he succeeded Dr. John Adams as school dean.

Cole received the Freedom Forum Medal for Distinguished Accomplishments in Journalism and Mass Communication Administration in 1992. The medal, which recognizes lifetime achievement, had been given only three times previously. Cole, then 50, was the youngest recipient ever at that time.

In 1982-83, Cole was national president of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, then with more than 2,000 professors in the United States and other countries as members. He was national president of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication in 1986-1987.

He was vice president of the national Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications from 1987 to 1995 and has chaired or been on national accrediting teams to more than 40 mass communication schools.

Cole has been a member of many national and international boards and task forces. He chaired the Freedom Forum’s national Scholarship Committee for years and now chairs the National Steering Committee of the Hearst Foundation’s journalism awards program.

Cole has brought giants in the field of journalism to the school to speak to students and the public; convened numerous panels on timely topics; and welcomed visiting journalists from scores of other countries. He has won a UNC teaching excellence award and holds the John Thomas Kerr Jr. Distinguished Professorship in the school.

"He’s just done a tremendous amount for the school," Bowers said. "The school will always bear his indelible mark. No other person in journalism-mass communication education in the world has had the impact on a school that he has had on this one."

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Photo URL:  http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/admin/deans_council/cole_richard.jpg

School contact: Zach Hoskins, assistant dean for communication, (919) 966-3323, zhoskins@email.unc.edu.